What is art? More specifically, is modern art actually art and, if it is, should any meaning whatsoever be given to it?

A smiling Marla Olmstead and best-selling controversial modern art in Sony Pictures Classics' My Kid Could Paint That

Those are two of the central questions to be found in the absorbing (if slight) documentary My Kid Could Paint That. Tracing the rise, fall and subsequent rise again of pint-sized four-year-old artist Marla Olmstead, the chronicles a series of events that can’t help but make one shake their head (even if slightly) in dismay.

In dismay at the parents Mark and Laura for exposing their child to the media glare. In dismay towards to the giddy relish this media employs to both build the child up and to rip her to shreds. In dismay at the way the general rabble of the world (and of the Olmstead community) first applaud the girl like mindless dodos only to shout the most uncalled for of obscenities when the child’s fame begins to fade.

Which is funny, because on before the cameras started rolling all of this probably seemed pretty innocuous and mildly benign. In 2004 documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev approached the Olmstead’s to make a film about the budding celebrity of their oldest child Marla. In the span of a few short months she had gone from her parents hanging her canvass paintings on the refrigerator to selling over $300,000 worth of work to modern art collectors all around the world. Thusly, the stage was set to examine just what it was exactly that made a budding child prodigy with eye of Pollack and the flare of Kandinsky tick.

Five months later everything changed. Not only had the filmmaker inadvertently become great friends with both Marla and her younger brother Zane making getting any useful footage of the girl painting an virtual impossibility, 60 Minutes aired an expose on the family anchored by Charlie Rose which basically accused the Olmstead’s of being frauds and Mark of doctoring all of his daughter’s paintings. In a millisecond everything changed, and what was a discussion of art suddenly became a juicier story about media manipulation and parental responsibility.

But how does it play as a documentary? Well, by and large it plays pretty well, Bar-Lev’s film more or less fascinating first frame to last. It just doesn’t answer, at least not to my satisfaction, and of the numerous questions that it posits. The reason for this is fairly obvious, of course, the filmmaker ending up becoming an inadvertent subject within his own project which whether he would want to admit it or not certainly clouds his objectivity. Unfortunately this had the unfortunate effect of making the picture a bit bittersweet, and by the time it fades to black it was hard to shake the feeling I wanted more than the director ended up being able to offer.

Still, this is still awful fascinating stuff at times, and little Marla Olmstead is easily one of the more singularly beguiling little kids I’ve seen grace the silver screen in ages. More, by the time it was all over I really did feel my heart breaking for mom Laura. She’s the one constantly urging restraint where it comes to her daughter, coming across as so 100-percent believable if her child’s painting really are forgeries and she knows about it than the woman might just be one of the best actresses of all time. 

In the end, is what Marla slaps to canvass really art or is it instead just another kid playing around in the very ways little kids are apt to do? The answer, like all great art, is solely in the eye of the beholder, My Kid Could Paint That asking questions everyone who takes the time to watch it will probably have their own wholly unique answer for.

Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  My Kid Could Paint That Theatrical Trailer